We Need a new Zoo keeper.

In my opinion we need a Thrid to Ref this Zoo. You wonder why everyone thinks all political party are the Same.


Spending by Sask. government and Opposition caucuses lacks transparency
By James Wood, The StarPhoenix May 26, 2010 Be the first to post a comment
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Every year the provincial government and the Opposition caucuses recieve $2 million but it's an area of spending that remains opaque to the public.Photograph by: Bryan Schlosser, Leader-Post filesREGINA — While a major controversy brews in Ottawa over oversight of MP expenses, provincial politicians in Saskatchewan have been under a system to publicly account for their individual spending of taxpayers' dollars for years.

However, one major area of spending remains opaque to the public — the nearly $2 million allocated to the government and Opposition caucuses annually.

New rules for individual members were introduced in the mid-1990s following the misuse of MLA communications allowances that ended in the conviction of 16 Progressive Conservative MLAs and caucus workers and one NDP MLA.

Members are allowed to charge for expenses in four areas: telephone and related expenses; MLA travel and living; constituency service and constituency assistants.

They must file a report annually with the legislative assembly outlining their expenditures. That report is available for perusal by the public at the legislature clerk's office and at the offices of MLAs.

"At the time these would have been the state of the art rules in the country and still are. When other jurisdictions are looking to change their rules, they come here," said NDP MLA Kevin Yates, the Opposition's ranking member on the legislature's board of internal economy.

Yates said MLAs are restricted in their discretionary spending compared to politicians in other jurisdictions and the legislative assembly staff assigned to vet expenditures are not reluctant to flag questionable costs and withhold reimbursement.

MLAs have a limit of $42,366 annually for constituency service expenditures, which include communications, advertising, offices and furniture. Constituency assistant expenditures are topped out at $52,054. Travel allowances vary based on the location of a member's constituency, with northern members allowed the most - $83,000. The average amount is $39,300.

Saskatchewan Party board member Don Morgan said the current system allowed members to check ahead of time whether an expense is allowable and ensured disclosure took place.

"There was a strong desire for the rules to be quite strict and that people should be able to look at them at the end of the year and say 'we got good value for our tax dollars,'" said Morgan.

But while the individual MLAs must provide listings of such things as individual purchases and suppliers and all other aspects of government expenditure such as salaries and payments to suppliers over $50,000 are released in public accounts, the use of funding provided to the caucuses remains obscured.

An annual report breaks overall down areas of expenditure such as salaries and research but not details of how the money is spent.

Morgan, the government's justice minister, struggled to explain why that data has remained hidden over the years even while transparency has increased on other aspects of provincial spending.

He suggested details of caucus spending would provide information to political opponents and raise questions about "motives."

"I think by its nature, caucus is . . . very reluctant to release information that they feel could effect their ability to deal with issues in the house when they want to bring things up," said Morgan.

But Yates said he could not think of any aspect of caucus spending that would be problematic to release publicly.

He said it was probably time for the board of internal economy to review all rules around expenditure and disclosure.

Caucus funding is allocated based on the number of MLAs not in cabinet. In 2008-2009, the Opposition NDP received $1,115,835 and the Sask. Party government received $838,245.

jwood@sp.canwest.com